Normally I'd be inclined to run something like this on a Sunday, when I like to explore more faith-based topics. However, today is Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day, where consumers who support the Christian ownership's stand against the HHS mandate that attempts to impose a highly restrictive definition of religious expression can put their money where their mouths are. Since I don't really have a hobby at the moment, I'll instead offer a passage from the open letter written by Hobby Lobby CEO David Green, who explains why he's decided to spend a lot of money and risk even more to fight the HHS regulation that would force him to act against his religious principles.

Were Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. Ive always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with Gods laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And thats what weve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the weeks biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by Gods grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. Weve not only added jobs in a weak economy, weve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we dont pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we dont cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company thats raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. Its not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that its the same for everybody. But thats not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it wont exempt them for reasons of religious belief.

So, Hobby Lobby  and my family  are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We dont like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

It’s worth pointing out that the mandate doesn’t exempt actual religious organizations either, such as Catholic charities, Presbyterian hospitals, Lutheran schools, and so on. Why? That’s the crux of the issue: the Obama administration is attempting to redefine religious expression to only those activities which take place within the four walls of a place of worship, or those activities restricted only to those of a single faith. That means that Catholic hospitals would qualify only if they refused to treat and employ any non-Catholics, for instance. Can you imagine those lawsuits?

The mandate for free birth control, which is already cheap and readily available for anyone who wants it (and has federal subsidies for Medicaid recipients already in place through Title X), is just a Trojan horse in an attack on religious liberty — and even more, for freedom of choice. If businesses want to offer “free” birth control (which will get funded by premium hikes), they can already do so; no one is stopping them. Same for schools, hospitals, and private citizens who want to donate money to family-planning clinics on their own. Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius want to strip that choice from Americans and force everyone to subsidize the procreative choices of everyone else, even those tens of millions whose religious beliefs have heretofore never had to be part of public policy. That’s the invasion of privacy, and it’s people like David Green who are being exploited.

Hobby Lobby is a privately held retail chain of arts and crafts stores based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, and is formally called Hobby Lobby Creative Centers.

The company was founded by David Green on August 3, 1972, and as of August 2012 the chain has 514 stores in 41 states. Hobby Lobby headquarters are located in a 3,400,000-square-foot (320,000 m2) manufacturing, distribution and office complex.

However, their appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, and as of 31 December 2012, the company faces fines of up to $1.3 million per day for violating provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act (AKA OBAMACARE !!)

Dang it, I wish they’d start selling something besides the stuff they already sell. I’ve bought something from them several times in the last month, but they really don’t have a lot of stuff my wife or I need.

Wish they’d throw in a couple of rows of appliances or something like that.

I’m ready to do some REAL voting with my pocketbook. Plus the more money I can spend there, the less goes someplace else. If we could find enough retailers with the ‘attachments’ to stand up for what they believe in - and reward them handsomely with sales - things might really start changing!

I saw this letter posted on Facebook and some of the comments were sickening. Some people commenting even had the gall to say Hobby Lobby was forcing it's employees to accept the founders religious beliefs, that access to free contraception and abortion was a "right" and that the Hobby Lobby founders should "suck up" and accept Obamacare's dictats.

We are seeing the Bill of Rights brazenly being torn up in front of us starting with both the First and Second Amendments.

My post was as serious as a heart attack. We’re going to be replacing our refrigerator soon, and honestly, if I could get one someplace for $1200, and Hobbly Lobby was selling them for $1500, I’d buy there.
To save this country we’ve tried darn near everything except concentrated pocketbook firepower. Fortunately my wife and I have lived a modest life and we can afford it. Every time I see a store expressing any kind of Christian idea in their advertising, I save it. If I could make EVERY dollar I spend go only to morally upright companies I would - even if it meant paying more.

The one thing I have noticed is that the people that have the most fundamentally sound and moral ideals, also tend to be the more financially solvent. If ALL of our money could go to the right companies, the others would soon be forced take a side or perish.

“Could ya use a couple pair of scissors or some needles and thread ? How about some glue or glue guns. Rubber cement ?”

That’s the kind of stuff I HAVE bought there in the last month or so. But I spend a lot more than that, and I want it to go only the right kinds of companies.

Example: we’re going to be replacing one of our cars this year Even though I have my preferred brands for technical reasons, if a manufacturer spoke up against zero’s nonsense, the ongoing attempts to make perversion normal, or any of the other secular liberal nonsense - I’d buy from them!

We need to be able to start channeling SERIOUS dollars towards moral companies. On lots of the big ticket items, it’s hard to figure out if there are any moral companies anymore.

Your thoughts are generous indeed, and you’re right that we should be spending money at conservative, Christian-owned companies. But even if you bought a refrigerator there and everyone else on FR did too, and we went back and bought another refrigerator every day, that would not keep Hobby Lobby in business. There’s no way they’d have enough extra money to keep paying $1.3M a day in fines.

As far as I can see, they have a few alternatives:

1. They can cut all their employees back to 29.9 hours per week so they’re excluded from the need to pay for health insurance that meets the standards of the mandate. They would have to hire a lot of additional people to take up the slack, and would be harming many of their full-time employees.
2. They could make all their employees contractors, for whom they have no responsibility to provide health insurance. I’m told this is not legal in a retail environment.
3. They could try to comply by giving their employees vouchers to go out and get their own insurance.
4. They could ignore the fines and let the government sue them, which could take awhile.
5. They could declare bankruptcy and wait to be bought by some company that doesn’t have their moral values.
6. They could just close their doors and put 21000 employees and tens or hundreds of thousands of dependent suppliers out of work.

If there’s another way of avoiding this while remaining in business, I haven’t thought of it, but I’m sure the Green family would be open to suggestions.

Your thoughts are generous indeed, and you’re right that we should be spending money at conservative, Christian-owned companies. But even if you bought a refrigerator there and everyone else on FR did too, and we went back and bought another refrigerator every day, that would not keep Hobby Lobby in business. There’s no way they’d have enough extra money to keep paying $1.3M a day in fines.

As far as I can see, they have a few alternatives:

1. They can cut all their employees back to 29.9 hours per week so they’re excluded from the need to pay for health insurance that meets the standards of the mandate. They would have to hire a lot of additional people to take up the slack, and would be harming many of their full-time employees.
2. They could make all their employees contractors, for whom they have no responsibility to provide health insurance. I’m told this is not legal in a retail environment.
3. They could try to comply by giving their employees vouchers to go out and get their own insurance.
4. They could ignore the fines and let the government sue them, which could take awhile.
5. They could declare bankruptcy and wait to be bought by some company that doesn’t have their moral values.
6. They could just close their doors and put 21000 employees and tens or hundreds of thousands of dependent suppliers out of work.

If there’s another way of avoiding this while remaining in business, I haven’t thought of it, but I’m sure the Green family would be open to suggestions.

RE: Hobby Lobby CEO open letter: Honoring God is more important than turning a profit

A fine of $1.3 Million a day will quickly bankrupt Hobby Lobby (unless the courts support their freedom to practice their faith <- FAT CHANCE OF THAT WITH THIS SUPREME COURT).

I suspect that if they have no recourse, they could either:

1) Sell their business.
2) Relocate to another country.
3) Refuse to conform and go to jail for the cause they believe in (making them modern day martyrs).

I have a sick feeling that option number 3 will be happening...

Personally I think that when option 3 hits the fan there will be a day when there is a pillar of smoke into the sky where there is hobby lobby and a rather large bonfire in the parking lot where their good will be burned, weather it is burned in an act of defiance by the Hobby Lobby staff or burned in a show of force by obama’s thugs..... That has yet to be seen..

All true points - but - one of the reason zero and his merry fools get away with this is because there is NOT a huge backlash from business.

While it is important to patronize stores that are “conservative, Christian-owned” it is equally important to NOT patronize those stores that won’t speak up. Nothing talks as loud as money (or the lack thereof). If 60% of the retail stores in this country were up in arms, change would happen. One little ole chain can’t win the battle by themselves.

The worst part is - I feel fairly certain that 60% of the store owners in this country DON’T agree with this crap. They just feel like, “well, why should I speak up, it will just bring a bunch of weirdos and perverts to protest outside my stores.” If we could give them a choice between lack of sales and weirdos, MONEY WOULD TALK THE LOUDEST.

The problem for us, especially with big ticket items, there’s not much to chose from. In 2010 I bought a Ford because they didn’t take money from the government. Barely a few months later they were announcing plans for “domestic partner coverage” in their insurance. Later this summer we are going to trade in another of our cars, and I can’t find a make that at some point hasn’t pandered to perverts.

Yes, public opinion would stay with Obama. The people being arrested would be portrayed as right-wing psychos who hate gays and are trying to inflict their religion on others.

Besides, in business it would not come to arrest. These are corporations. The government sues, wins a judgement against the business, and the assets of the business are liquidated to pay the fines. The Green family do not personally have their assets taken away. All that happens is that HL is closed.

"Besides, in business it would not come to arrest. These are corporations. The government sues, wins a judgement against the business, and the assets of the business are liquidated to pay the fines. The Green family do not personally have their assets taken away. All that happens is that HL is closed."

And the assets sold off to a more compliant company that would fill the same market niche, maybe even a company wiith connections to the Regime. Unless there is a surprise intervention by the courts, there won't be a solution within the existing social order.

Hobby Lobby was denied a stay of enforcement of the HHS mandate, by Sonya Sotomayor - who is now known to not be eligible to be SCOTUS because the man who nominated her - Barack Obama - has no legally-established birth facts (according to certified letters of verification from HI state registrar Alvin Onaka) and thus could never have “qualified” by Jan 20, 2009 as required by the 20th Amendment. Since he failed to qualify only the Vice President elect (Joe Biden) is allowed by the 20th Amendment to “act as President”, including nominating Supreme Court justices.

If Hobby Lobby is serious about wanting to fight this - and I believe they are - then they can do themselves and the country a favor by responding to Sotomayor’s denial of the stay by filing a claim that they have become aware of new information which legally indicates that Sotomayor is not eligible to be on SCOTUS and thus CANNOT deny them a stay.

They are already recognized as having “standing”, the issue is extremely relevant to how the government is still aggrieving them, and the issue would have to be taken up very quickly - more quickly than any other plaintiff could get a case before SCOTUS.

They never asked for this position, but Hobby Lobby - like Esther in the Old Testament - may well have been placed in this position for such a time as this, in order to save their people from an enemy intent on doing all Christians severe harm.

We need to support Hobby Lobby, but one of the best ways to do that, IMHO, is to encourage them to take the legal tactic that they may have been specifically placed by God to use.

I faxed their attorney’s office, but I’m not an attorney so they have no idea if I know what I’m talking about. We need to get their attention, though, so that their attorney will look into this.

I feel badly because I was just asking everybody’s help to contact Congress and it wasn’t pulled together quickly enough. Now I have to ask the same thing, only with Hobby Lobby.

Please - especially if you are an attorney and understand and agree with the legal reasoning presented by Larry Klayman in his letter to Bob Bauer (seen at http://butterdezillion.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/complete-klayman-letter-to-bauer.pdf ) - please contact the attorney for Hobby Lobby (or the owners) and let them know that they may have been placed in their particular position for such a time as this. They have exactly the standing, just cause, legal documents to provide the proof of the claim, already-existent urgent SCOTUS situation , and backing of the religious-liberty community to be able to confront the danger on behalf of all of us. There’s nothing for them to lose and everything to be gained.

If you have a ping list, please ping the list so we can get the biggest response - and hopefully from some attorneys, since they have more clout than non-attorneys.

Thanks! I sincerely apologize for being a pest lately; seems like this may be the one realistic chance left.

But if they challenge Sotomayor’s ability to be on SCOTUS they also challenge Kagan’s. And if Sotomayor and Kagan are out because they were nominated by somebody who couldn’t “act as President”, then the whole balance of the court changes in hearing the Obamacare issue.

It could almost be called a gift of God that Sotomayor did this, because it gives the golden opportunity to immediately confront Obama and eventually ALL his illegal nominations and appointments.

The other thing is that if the challenge is directly to Sotomayor, and Kagan is mentioned in the same motion, those two would HAVE to recuse themselves immediately. Which immediately changes the balance of EVERYTHING at SCOTUS. That’s why I say having Sotomayor make the denial could be a lifeline gift from God.

I intend to overpay if necessary for an AR-15 target upper receiver at my local gun show this Saturday. Non-violent ways of telling the government where to put their infringements are getting more expensive every day.

I LOVE Hobby Lobby! went yesterday with my daughter and found a slue of things to buy but I am into crafts. When we first arrived the parking lot was only half full but by the time we left they were packed.
They also sell patio furniture and outdoor items. It is a good thing I live an hour away or I would be broke ..I can’t resist the pretty things they sell.

Shame this ... I didn’t hear that yesterday was a HL appreciation day. My teenage daughter likes to draw laying out on the floor and I was thinking of getting her a proper drawing desk as a post-Xmas present.

One additional nice thing about HL is that they always have 40% off one item (per customer, per day) coupon that can be printed from their website or just displayed for the cashier on a smartphone.

Thanks for the Freeper list which I had never seen before. Strangely enough, most of the companies on the boycott list I was already avoiding for one reason or another. The Buy Blue website you are referring to apparently closed in 2007. Probably few left wing morons that can read.

Unfortunately all these list point to the same thing I’ve been lamenting. When it comes to big ticket items, it is apparently a crap shoot. And in some cases, there simply may be none.

I had about eliminated Ford from our choices this year over their ‘domestic partners’ BS. But doing a little searching I find similar nonsense linked in some way to just about every other car brand! Ditto for appliance makers and the refrigerator we’ll be buying this month. I just really wish there was a way to keep my major purchases from going to companies run by perverts and jackasses.

For the new fridge, look for a mom-and-pop or local dealer. Failing that, try to buy through a right-minded sales rep who works on commission. Same with the vehicle — find a dealership run by good folks.

We go there all the time. My wife sews, so they have one of the best sewing supplies around. She loves the store. The only draw back to their stores, is they sometimes have long lines checking out and few checkout counters. You have to wait long times some times. But, that is about the only draw back that we have found. They are closed Sunday, just like the Chicken store. Good for the both of them.

I went to Hobby Lobby for the first time yesterday to support the effort. It's far from my house and JoAnn Fabrics and Michael's are closer, but I loved Hobby Lobby. Now that I know what they have, and that the prices of its fabrics and many other similar goods are not exorbitant as they are at JoAnn Fabrics, I will certainly go there first instead of JoAnn.

Also, they have an online coupon. You don't have to sign up like at JoAnn.

I do a lot of that already. In the next three years or so we'll be replacing our central heat and air unit. I have a really GREAT family run heat and air vendor that will do the work. Unfortunately, most of the money will actually be for the unit itself. I find nothing on any of the major vendor's websites (Trane, Carrier, etc) that indicates any philosophy.

Sadly, I have a feeling that one or more of these are run by people we support, but they keep their beliefs to themselves to avoid having the nut-ball faction marching outside their buildings. That's what really pisses me off. People can express brain-dead liberal ideas and get away with it, but if you express conservative values, the freak circus shows up.

We shop at Hobby Lobby all the time. It is not the closest to the house but not more then 10mile further. We spend hundreds of dollars in yarn, (I need sheep) to support the knitting addicts in my house. Love the store and the people working there, and the praise and worship music is a nice bonus.

50
posted on 01/06/2013 6:11:58 PM PST
by DYngbld
(I have read the back of the Book and we WIN!!!!)

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